


the sound of the end

by honeybakedtea



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, idk what else to add. dimitri becomes a porcupine??, no death until chap 2 wooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:13:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24109540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybakedtea/pseuds/honeybakedtea
Summary: He rouses later, when Felix is half-carrying, half-hauling him through the forest. He is bulking under Dimitri’s weight, his back curving like a meridian, and Dimitri finds himself unsurprised. He is a heavy man, after all.“Felix…”Felix exhales, sharply. “Don’t close your eyes again,” he snaps.Weakly, Dimitri nods. His head is spinning. His back feels flayed, splintering at the seams. As if that part of his body was carved from him, staked, and left out to fester in the sun.Well. At least he knows now what Glenn felt in his last moments.Dimitri suffers an injury on the battlefield. Felix is the one to find him.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 14
Kudos: 70
Collections: Dimilix Remix 2020





	1. (dynamic)

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is a remix of jas/@baoxie's [fantastic artwork!](https://twitter.com/baoxie_/status/1229897256607682560?s=20) check it out, it is so so good
> 
> THANK YOU [MIN](https://twitter.com/yitamins) FOR BETAING, ILY AS ALWAYS
> 
> cw for descriptions of violence. more details are in endnotes

It is Saturday, 18th of the Wyvern Moon, and Dimitri is lying face down on the forest floor, with a spear embedded in his back. 

Maybe there are two spears, or maybe there are three. Perhaps there are even more. Dimitri does not know; he has long since stopped counting them, because even beginning with the first makes him teeter on the edge of blackness. He has also long since given up the faint hope that the others would find him; his body is far too camouflaged for that, tucked away in the depths of foliage and dense fog. The bandits did their job well.

Perhaps this is for the best. Perhaps this is his penance, of sorts, even though dying without finishing his duty is still the coward’s way out.

His eyes slip closed, slowly and painfully. There is not much he can do to stop it, given that his entire body aches, and he has been clinging on to life for what has seemed like hours already. 

Instead, as everything quietens around him, this is what Dimitri thinks: first, that this is a pathetic way to die, and second, that this is the first time his mind has been silent in four long years.

  
  
  
  
  


It starts like this:

The Lions are in a skirmish. It is a routine assignment, taken up on the professor’s insistence that they acquaint themselves with their newly-assigned battalions. The bandits are slightly stronger than they had anticipated, but the merchant who requested their aid assures them that he will pay double for their efforts, so it is not a big deal in the beginning.

Even so, Dimitri is surprised to find that the bandits are coordinated enough to call for organised reinforcements partway through the battle. These reinforcements are not the normal ruffians, either - they arrive in separate squadrons, surrounding his allies from most quarters. They fight as if they have military experience, and their weapons swing powerfully in the way that only the expensive, commissioned ones do.

Dimitri narrows his eyes, and files that observation away for later. For now, he can focus on the one entrance that most of them seem to be storming in from.

“Professor!” he shouts, ducking around a tree. “To the west!”

The professor looks up, and nods in Dimitri’s direction. He will never understand how uncanny their hearing can be, sometimes. 

The Sword of the Creator whips back into its normal form as the professor directs the rest of the Lions to the western entrance, wiping sweat from their brow as soon as they hear the rallying answers. Mercedes and her battalion are at their back already, and Dimitri can faintly see Ashe’s outline getting closer in the distance. 

There is no time to watch them, however, because all the villagers have not escaped yet. Their screams are farther away, so they are not very loud, but - his head will summon the same images, again, if he is not careful -

Dimitri’s foot catches on the forest floor. He gasps as he tumbles down, reflexes unusually slow, and lands awkwardly on his hands. The culprit is probably a stray twig, and later he will scold himself for his wandering mind, but right now he is vulnerable, and -

He scrambles backwards. A swordsman is looming over him, his weapon pointing a deadly line to his sternum, and that is all the warning Dimitri gets before it plunges downwards. He manages to roll out of the way, narrowly missing the stab, but his dodge is a clumsy one, and all too soon the swordsman has ripped his sword out of the mud and is stalking over for another attempt - 

Someone barrels past Dimitri’s shoulder, and bodily flings himself into his assailant.

Felix. It is Felix who yells at the staggering enemy, dispatches him in one clean hit, and turns to Dimitri with disgust written plainly across his face.

“What are you doing?” Felix spits. His brow is sweaty, and there is blood on his top lip. Dimitri watches as the solitary bead glistens, threatening to drop below as Felix heaves from his exertion. “Hold it together, boar. I’m not here to cover for your shortcomings.”

Ah. His shortcomings. Dimitri has had enough of those, himself. He understands how Felix must feel all too well. 

“Thank you, Felix,” Dimitri says, genuinely, and attempts a smile. 

His smile must be as unnatural as ever, because Felix only sneers at him, before racing after a soldier attempting to pursue Annette.

Dimitri stares at Felix’s retreating back. There is a pang in his chest as he watches him, as his old friend disappears into a flurry of movement. 

Then, Dimitri turns, raises his lance, and charges to the west.

  
  
  
  
  


By the time he gets there, the wave of reinforcements has thinned considerably. The gate is still open, but the man waving in the stragglers, has turned his back towards Dimitri, leaving it unguarded and vulnerable. It is a beginner’s mistake, which makes Dimitri feel somewhat sympathetic, until he remembers the barren landscape of the pillaged houses. His sympathy quickly becomes replaced by a cold fury.

Dimitri points the tip of his lance at the back of the man’s throat. He is careful to only let it graze the skin - enough so that the man freezes, and lets go of the gate handle.

“That’s enough,” Dimitri says. He manages to keep his voice even. Measured. “Call off your men. The Archbishop may still grant you mercy, should you choose to surrender now.”

Mercy from the Archbishop is doubtful, considering the fate of Lonato and the other Western Church rebels. If captured, these bandits will be lucky to be granted a swift punishment - especially since the almshouse was already demolished when Dimitri passed by it.

However, there has been enough bloodshed for today. 

The man puts his hands up, slowly, and Dimitri withdraws his lance. The man turns his head, face apologetic, and for one solid moment, Dimitri thinks he has succeeded.

Then, the man scoffs. “I don’t take orders from noble brats,” he says, before he whistles. He ducks immediately afterwards, and Dimitri doesn’t have the time to stab him before metal pierces the small of his back. 

The pain is searing, agonising, and it is quickly followed by another, and another, in rapid succession, until there are so many entry points that Dimitri thinks he could carve a bloody constellation into his own flesh. He gasps, a black fog clouding his vision, and by the time it is gone, he is already curled on the floor. His lance has clattered out of his hands, far out of reach.

“That’s it,” the man - the ringleader, Dimitri realises, from his clothing - says. His voice is rough and coarse, like the sound of a blunt blade scraping against whetstone. “Hurry up and die, already.”

There are other bandits, now, jeering in the background. Dimitri was foolish not to notice them. Leaving himself so open like that would have been a silly mistake made by the newest squires - certainly not expected of a seasoned soldier of Faerghus. The humiliation is almost overpowering. 

What would his classmates say? What would the professor say? They would be disappointed, no doubt.

Then, Dimitri stops thinking about humiliation entirely, because the ringleader lifts one of his own lances, and stabs it downwards. The force of the impact jostles the other weapons, and it is _unbearable._ Dimitri doesn’t allow himself to scream, but he gasps, again, and bites his lip. Copper floods his tongue, matching the blood pooling on the floor, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

It is a pathetic way to go. He will have a poor excuse upon his tongue when he finally succumbs, because it is his weakness, _again,_ that will leave the wishes of the dead unfulfilled.

“Can we go, boss?” one of the bandits whines. She is stamping her foot, as if the day’s events are mere child’s play. “We’ve got all the goods. And he’ll die soon, right? Why do we have to wait?”

The ringleader looms over him. His face is cold, unfeeling. Utterly devoid of any emotion.

… Is this what Felix saw at the rebellion?

“.. Fine by me,” the ringleader shrugs, before he delivers a sharp kick to Dimitri’s side. 

This time, Dimitri does scream.

  
  
  
  


Sometime later, he wakes again, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. Mercifully, his back is still turned up, but it is slippery, and slick with wetness. The wetness seeps into the ground, soaking the soil, and drenches the fingers he has curled into the soft mud.

Dimitri does not dare move. He does not dare to pull out the lances, either, because although he is hopeless at healing, even _he_ knows that it would likely only kill him faster. His back is numb, and he has experienced this pain only once before: four years ago, when Kingdom soldiers mistakenly plunged their weapons into his outstretched body. He had been forced to move when his back was numb, then, and it is a feeling he never wants to experience ever again.

No one is here. The gate is suspended in the air, entrance wide open. The sounds of battle have quietened, yet Dimitri still has no idea how much time has passed inbetween his bouts of consciousness. His Lions are likely rounding up the villagers, expecting him to do the same on his side.

Dimitri grits his teeth. Dying here is not an option, but he cannot _move._ Again, his body fails him, because simply breathing is punishing, nevermind dragging himself to shouting distance.

Still. He must try.

Dimitri inhales, sharply. Then, with one shaky motion, he heaves himself forward.

It is futile. He manages to travel one pace before he collapses, his body shrieking in agony. His head explodes in pain, like the scattered stardust in children’s books. Dimitri heaves again, and lets his face fall onto the floor. 

One minute. One minute, and then he’ll try again. 

His fingers scrabble uselessly for a purchase on the ground, and the mixture of blood and soil squelches under his nails.

_“BOAR!”_

_Ah,_ Dimitri thinks, dizzy, as thunderous footfalls pound the earth, completely unlike the light nimble steps their owner favours. _That must be Felix._ And then, when Felix kneels next to his head, _ah. He is covering for my shortcomings again._

“Boar,” Felix repeats. His voice is quivering. Somehow, this is the sound that gives Dimitri the strength to crack his eyes open again.

Felix is a mess. His dark hair has come undone from its usual bun, lying frazzled around his face, and blood is spattered down the front of his swordmaster’s garb. A deep gash cuts into his cheek, and Dimitri wishes he could offer his handkerchief to wipe it away. 

“Felix…” he rasps, coughing wetly into the ground. Felix watches him wheeze, and his face turns ashen.

“What did you _do!”_ he shouts. Dimitri’s ears ring as Felix’s hands scrabble at his back. His fingers tentatively flutter around the wounds, and Dimitri can only groan. His breath hitches, and suddenly he’s gasping again.

“Shit,” Felix curses. He coughs, too, leaning forward. There is nausea written all over his face, just like how he looked after the Western Rebellion. It takes a moment, but when Felix finally stops heaving, he checks Dimitri’s pouches, fingers shaking, likely looking for healing items. 

Healing items that are not there, because Dimitri gave them all to the fleeing villagers. Felix stares at the empty pouches, eyes wide, before he cups one hand around his mouth.

“Mercedes!” Felix’s voice echoes, but there is no answer. Distantly, Dimitri thinks that Felix’s brow is scrunched harder than he has ever seen it before. “MERCEDES! ANNETTE!”

They are too far away, probably at the other end of the village. Dimitri knows for certain that Mercedes and Annette will not hear him, because they will be preoccupied with the welfare effort. There is no way Felix’s cry will be heard over the chaos in the village.

Felix’s face falls as he arrives at the same conclusion.

“F’lix…” Dimitri slurs. He tries to lift his head to at least look at his friend, but it _hurts_. Instead, he slumps, his head hitting the ground, and lets it loll to the side. From this point of view, he can see how lazily the worms are wriggling about in the dirt. The soil, too, smells like iron. “Please…”

_Leave me,_ is what he wants to say, so that Felix will not have to be burdened by him as he runs for help, and will be able to catch the Lions’ attention faster. 

And so that Felix won’t have to watch him die. Dimitri would rather spare him that pain. He knows he will make a horrible sight for Felix in death.

Felix scowls. 

“Shut up,” he hisses, before he hoists Dimitri over one shoulder in a feat of admirable strength. Dimitri cries out. “Shut the _fuck up.”_

Felix rises too, then, with Dimitri slung over him like a corpse fished out of a river. Dimitri lets his head hang. The ground spins under him, a mess of brown and pooling red, and the sight makes him retch.

When Felix takes a step, the weapons barbed into Dimitri’s back jerk and drag. Dimitri screams, again, and feels it, like flashes of light through a haze of dull pain, when Felix tenses under him. Why _Felix_ is tensing is beyond him. Dimitri does not remember a recent time where Felix ever treated him gently.

Then, Felix starts to run, and Dimitri suddenly feels nothing at all.

  
  
  
  


He rouses later, when Felix is half-carrying, half-hauling him through the forest. He is bulking under Dimitri’s weight, his back curving like a meridian, and Dimitri finds himself unsurprised. He is a heavy man, after all.

“Felix…”

Felix exhales, sharply. “Don’t close your eyes again,” he snaps. 

Weakly, Dimitri nods. His head is spinning. His back feels flayed, splintering at the seams. As if that part of his body was carved from him, staked, and left out to fester in the sun.

Well. At least he knows now what Glenn felt in his last moments.

“How… far?” Dimitri manages.

Felix’s breathing is ragged, now. He is exerting too much effort, but he still finds the energy to bark an answer. “Not far left. If you give up now, you’ll look as pathetic to the rest of them as you do to me.”

Dimitri feels his body start to shake, out of his own accord. _Not far left._ He forces his fingers to move, and tightens his grip. “Alright, Felix.”

Felix makes no comment, and soldiers on.

  
  
  
  


It is hours later (or maybe it is minutes, or maybe it is seconds), when Dimitri feels the last of his strength ebb from his fingers, and his grip is suddenly _not enough_ after all. In one swift movement, he has slid off Felix’s back, and has collapsed onto the floor. 

“BOAR!”

Felix’s cry is nearly as agonising as the impact itself. The ground is cold, merciless, and meets Dimitri with a hardness that slams the wind out of him. Dimitri is left wheezing again. There is no _air._

He has seen death. He has seen the faces of his loved ones as they died, their soft flesh melting alongside the flames. Their tears had mixed with the falling ash as they scrambled for air within thick black smoke. Dimitri has recounted this vision for four years, so it is no surprise when he gasps and _gasps_ , and his body arches its back, and his back oozes blood. 

This, however - the sight of Felix, looming over him, eyes very bright - is something he has not seen since he was fifteen. For years, Felix has only ever been disgusted with him. With what he has become. Dimitri knows how to handle that disgust, but Felix’s expression now, the way his mouth twists downwards, and how his fingers shake… he has no idea what to do with it.

Felix’s dark hair hangs like a curtain around his face. Dimitri would touch it, if he could, although Felix would surely kill him for trying. 

Hah. He is already a dead man. Felix’s killing blow would mean nothing.

“Felix…” Dimitri rasps. Felix does not move. “I am… sorry.”

He _is_ sorry. He truly is sorry for burning whatever scraps of innocence Felix had left after the Tragedy, and he is sorry for letting it mold itself into anger the moment he allowed his mask to slip. 

Dimitri is good at that, at taking things away from Felix. Stealing away his brother, his innocence. His happiness.

“Stop,” Felix croaks. “You have no right to be sorry.”

Dimitri blinks. He has no idea what Felix means, but his eyes are growing heavy again.

“Boar - _no._ No. Dimitri, you fucking bastard, don’t close your eyes.” Felix’s fingers scrabble at his face, finding a home at his throat. He presses down, even though Dimitri’s blood already feels sluggish in his veins. “Stay awake. Just _stay awake,_ do you hear me? Don’t you dare go to sleep!”

Felix sounds genuinely terrified. There is horror etched across his face. His mouth opens in a wordless scream, and it is then that Dimitri realises, distantly - he cannot hear anything. 

He can still see, though. He can see how Felix’s eyes blaze, like molten gold. They still remind Dimitri of a sunset, although he supposes that they also resemble the eternal flames he will be meeting soon. A vision of the future, perhaps.

Felix screams, again, and Dimitri slips away with a fragmented apology on his tongue.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


When he wakes up again, the first thing Dimitri feels is _surprise._

He is surprised; partly because he is lying in a soft bed in the infirmary, and partly because he is alone again. Mostly, however, he is surprised because [he truly did not expect to wake up.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24109540/chapters/58040338) He had resigned himself to finally passing on and waking to flames lapping at his skin, so to wake instead to the smell of Manuela’s tea is… strange.

His back is numb again. It is not like the dull, throbbing numbness he had felt the last time he was awake, but more so the absence of feeling entirely. Dimitri is careful not to stretch a muscle as he takes stock of the room, because again - he does not trust the numbness of his back.

Manuela’s tea is in a steaming cup on the bedside table, right next to a vase of fresh flowers. The latter is Dedue’s doing, no doubt, and Dimitri smiles at the arrangement.

More surprisingly, the tabletop is nearly overflowing with… cards. Upon closer inspection, each and every one of them are from well-wishers, and the sight makes his stomach feel queasy. He wonders who thought to leave him get-well-soon cards, and who else took up the mantle to follow them. Or maybe it was a coordinated effort. It wouldn’t be entirely unexpected, from his Lions.

Funnily enough, it seems as if his Lions aren’t the only ones. From the bed, he can see the familiar loop of Claude’s handwriting, and the curt scrawl of Hapi’s. Even Marianne’s neat cursive joins the lot, despite how she had made it clear that she preferred not being around him the last time they had spoken.

It is odd, and Dimitri is still curious as to how he accumulated so many well-wishes. Surely he would have heard his classmates, if they came to drop them off during his stint in this bed.

No one is here at the moment, though, so he allows himself to smile again, alone in the privacy of the infirmary.

  
  
  
  
  


He does not enjoy his solitude for long. Right as Dimitri tries to wiggle his toes, the door creaks, quietly. A familiar boot toes the door open, and closes it just as silently. If Dimitri had not been awake, he would surely have not heard it at all.

Felix looks the same as he always has. His hair is in his trademark bun, and his skin has a slight sheen to it. He has probably just returned from the training grounds, because he has undone the top two buttons of his shirt, and his eyes have that happy gleam to it that Dimitri only sees when he watches him leave a gruelling session.

He enters holding two glasses; one filled with ice chips, and the other filled with water. When he sees Dimitri, his eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“You’re awake,” Felix says. For once, he sounds neutral. Mellow.

Dimitri tries a smile. His face hurts. “Hello, Felix,” he says. “I trust you are well.”

Felix scowls, and crosses the room in one swift motion. “I’m fine,” he answers, curtly, as he sweeps aside the cards to make room for the glasses. A couple of the cards fall onto the floor, and he snatches them up, before tossing them haphazardly on the drawer. “No thanks to you.”

Briefly, Dimitri shuts his eyes. They are back to this, then.

“If I may ask… what happened? My memories are muddled. It seems that I cannot remember much.” He can’t remember anything, really, apart from becoming a pincushion. The memories between that and waking up here are sketchy, at best.

Felix blinks. His eyes crinkle, and his forehead smooths out. For a moment, he seems… younger.

Then, he shrugs. “You passed out. I had to lug you back to Mercedes.” He says this very carefully, but with his usual disdain. It is almost impressive. “Maybe this will teach you not to charge off on your own again.”

Dimitri almost thinks he hasn’t heard him properly. He can’t help but bark a laugh, and immediately his back flares, making him hiss from the fiery sensation of it. So much for ‘numbness’, because now his eyes are threatening to water.

Felix thrusts the glass of water towards him. “What’s so funny?” he snaps. 

“Sorry, Felix. It’s just that - “ Dimitri gulps down the water, and gingerly pats his throat to stop himself from spewing it down his front. “I didn’t expect to hear that from _you,_ of all people.”

_Charge off on his own._ That is _Felix’s_ trademark move. It is the primary reason why he receives so many infractions from the professor, and it is the primary reason why Sylvain charges off after him too, in order to pull him back. Felix’s ‘lone wolf’ moniker did not appear from thin air, after all. 

To hear him advise Dimitri of the opposite… 

Felix snorts, dispassionate. “I am strong. I can afford to fight alone.” He stares at Dimitri, flatly. “You may be a beast, but even you need other people to fight alongside before you get too weak to carry on. Unless you want the others to watch as your mask slips?

Dimitri sighs. All this talk of beasts and masks again. He _knows_ that his mask is slipping; Felix does not need to remind him. And in this state, he cannot even make head nor tail of where Felix’s argument is heading. It is too much.

“Fine.” Dimitri pauses. He scrabbles around for a conversation topic that won’t turn to his being a monster. “How long have I been in the infirmary?” 

Felix looks away, scowling off to the side. “Three days.”

Dimitri stares at him, dumbstruck. Felix does not meet his gaze. Not even once. 

Then, Dimitri allows his head to thud back against the headboard. 

_Three days._ He has missed three days. Three days he could have utilised on his research, and instead he spent it stuck in bed.

How annoying.

“Right. I see,” Dimitri sighs. He can already feel another headache coming on. “Then I have much to catch up on.”

Felix is apparently hellbent on escaping this awkward silence, because as soon as Dimitri finishes speaking, he starts to get up from his seat.

“Your reports are on your desk,” Felix says. “The professor wants to see you after you’re discharged.”

“Leaving already, Felix?” Dimitri smiles. His stomach sinks in that familiar way, and he has to remind himself that this is Felix’s wish, to be distanced from him. He may as well respect it. “And here I thought we could finally have a pleasant conversation.”

Felix narrows his eyes. “I only came because the professor asked me to,” he says, curtly. “Why else would I waste my time speaking to an animal like you?”

Dimitri sighs, again. They always circle back to this, no matter how hard he tries otherwise. “Very well then. I won’t keep you.” His smile falters. “Have a good day, Felix.”

Felix doesn’t spare him a backward glance. He snatches the cup of ice chips, and stalks out of the room, leaving the door ajar. The draft that sweeps into the room is chilly, but Dimitri pays it no mind.

He waits, until he is sure that he cannot hear that familiar patter of footsteps down the hallway. It is the set he has permanently etched onto his memory, stretching from his boyhood days, all the way up until what they are now. Felix’s steps have stayed the same through time, after all - even if their friendship has not. 

Then, Dimitri sighs, and reaches out to grab one of the cards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: dimitri gets stabbed a lot, and his wounds are described in some detail. there are also a couple of throwaway lines about the tragedy of Duscur, and dimitri's recollections of the people he saw die there. take care of yourselves!
> 
> OKAY so in terms of remixing, what i was going for was a pre-ts version of the artwork. focusing on what might've happened before and after, and dimitri's pov on everything. i also wanted to emphasise felix's feelings on having to haul dimitri to safety... jas drew his eye in such a haunting way that it made me go brbbrbrbruhshash and smash that out on a keyboard. hope it worked!!
> 
> chapter 1 is standalone. chapter 2 is more of an addendum.... a 'what-if'. a way to make you Sad, mayhaps. read on for that if you would like it


	2. (quiet)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what if?

Felix screams, again, as Dimitri’s eyes roll back in their sockets.

_“Dimitri!”_

His voice is wrecked. He raises a hand to scrub at his eyes, and they come away wet and bloody. Dammit. He’s so _weak._

Felix’s head is pounding as he pushes two fingers against Dimitri’s throat. For five horrible seconds, there is nothing, and his heart threatens to jump out of his chest.

Slowly, he feels a sluggish pulse. It’s jumpy, rabbit-quick, but the relief of it being _there_ nearly overpowers the actual feeling of Dimitri’s heartbeat jumping underneath his fingers. Still alive, still present, even though his skin is so cold. 

Dimitri mumbles, before he coughs, weakly. He’s still in danger, but he’s _alive._

Felix sobs. It’s a sound he fails to suppress, slipping out of him before he can claw it back.

Then, he grips Dimitri by his armpits, and starts to haul him towards the others.

  
  
  
  
  


Mercedes finds them first. She has been scanning the horizon for what seems like hours, when her gaze lands on their two missing members, staggering towards the group.

Her heart jumps as the figures collapse into a heap.

“Felix!” she calls, grabbing a fistful of her robes and sprinting. “Dimitri!”

Felix looks up, slowly. He turns his face to look directly at her, and the sight makes Mercedes falter.

She’s seen heartbroken people before. The nature of their missions means that loss and grief easily find their way onto people’s faces. As a healer, she’s had plenty of experience, however harrowing, of giving these people comfort wherever she can.

But she has never seen _this._

Felix’s eyes are unseeing. His mouth is parted, and his cheeks are wet - _so_ wet, even though the day is dry, and it has not rained for a week. 

“Mercedes,” he whispers, and Mercedes jolts. His voice is quieter than she’s ever heard it. Hoarse, as if he cannot bear to speak up. “Heal him.”

Mercedes looks. Dimitri is there, lying in Felix’s arms. His eyes are open, staring to the side, and his leg is splayed awkwardly. His back is a bloody mess.

“Please,” Felix’s voice cracks, but Mercedes is already dropping to the floor.

She casts a Heal, her hands shaking. Dimitri is one of her dearest friends, and she will not allow him to die, as much as she is able to.

Her magic washes over Dimitri’s face, but instead of sinking into his skin, it settles like dust on his body. He looks like he is covered in white ash. 

_No._

She tries a Mend, and then a desperate Recover. The latter goes as far as to illuminate both her and Felix, her magic coursing stronger than she has ever channelled it, but the same thing happens. Felix simply watches the glow die down, kneeling in the mud. His lower lip is wobbling.

Mercedes rocks back on her ankles. Her mind is blank. For once, there is nothing to say. 

Half of her is desperately screaming not to believe it. Healers are taught to do their utmost to help the fallen, but if they cannot be revived with even a Recover, then… 

Felix is still watching her, eyes wide and fearful. She lowers her hand, and he makes a choked sound.

“Don’t stop!” he snaps. He shakes Dimitri’s body, as if that alone will awaken the prince. A flurry of footfalls sound behind them as the rest of the class arrive, and Mercedes wants to turn her face away as their shrieks of horror sound all around her. “Try again!”

“Felix…”

Mercedes has been tasked to break the news for many people of a loved one’s passing. It is the nature of her job, and she is willing to do it, but it never gets easier. People react differently, and this means that she must respond accordingly.

But with Dimitri, it is so much more difficult. He was her _friend._

And Felix… his face looks as if his world is crashing down around him.

“I said, _try again!”_ Felix shouts. Dedue is kneeling with him in the mud, now, his face stricken. Ingrid and Sylvain are there, too, attempting to haul Felix away. Ingrid is crying. Sylvain’s eyes are cast to the side. “He’s not dead! I know it - I dragged him here myself. His eyes are open, dammit. The bastard’s still _alive_ , he can’t be dead - !”

The professor places a hand on Felix’s shoulder, but Felix wrenches it off.

“Don’t give me that bullshit! He’s not dead!”

“Felix…” Sylvain tries.

“ _Shut up!”_ Felix screams, before he breaks down completely.

He is howling. Sobbing, crying, and his face is scrunched up, ugly, and the tears won’t stop running, as if Felix has an endless ocean to cry for Dimitri. His anguish finally sets off the others, too, who have only been staring in silent, abject horror. Their crying rings together in a little circle in the forest - and if one were to watch them from a distance, it would seem almost as if it were a playtime for children.

Mercedes stares at her hands. Dimitri does not move again.

Felix doesn’t stop sobbing, for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of jas' notes said 'schrodinger's boar'. i couldn't NOT kill him after reading that
> 
> (dw he's not dead. just taking a phat nap. will wake up any minute for sure)
> 
> thank you for reading!


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